Au Revoir Ma Chere Grandemere

Mariette Bruckert

You died tonight at in your bed, in Michigan. I was getting Annike in her jammies when I found out, that's why I didn't cry for you right away. Lars and I decided we would tell the kids in the morning, Petra will have a hard time. I thought I felt you leave us when we were sitting down for dinner tonight, I told Petra that I couldn't talk about you anymore because my throat kept closing up. Yes, I believe that is when you died, I felt it. Isn't it odd we were reflecting about you at that moment? After I tucked my babies in then I stopped holding my breath, that's when you crept inside of me and then tucked yourself into my heart. Now with each beat, you pulse through me. You are filling up my form with feelings and thoughts of you. Some of them hurt a little so I have to let those out in my tears, but most of it I am trying to keep inside of me.

I'm sad that I moved so far away from you so that at the end I wasn't part of your mind anymore. I feel regrettable about the day I last said good-bye, my last good-bye to you. You knew me then, though less than before. I knew I was saying good-bye forever and ever even though you wouldn't pass away for another 19-months. I cried so hard that it made Grandpa cry, of course, he knew why I was crying.

Now I am trying, you see, trying to have some perspective, I don't want your whole existence to be about the saddest part of you -- your death. I want you to know that I love you. I want you to know that I'm lucky to have had you. I want you to know that I cherish the unique history that you passed on to me, the one that makes me just a little bit different from others. I want you to know that I'll think of you often for a period of time and then after a while I'll think of you less often as the days pass, but I will still love you the same. I want you to know that it hurts me to say this but I'll tell you anyway: I was relieved when you passed, but only because you deserve better. I want you to know that when I was little, you were the most glamorous person in the world with perfect hair and pink lip-stick and big sedans and a certain je ne sais quoi when it came to dollhouse furniture. I want you to know that I'm smiling at this moment thinking about my wedding day when Lars' dad was trying to teach you how to do The YMCA on the dance floor with all our college buddies, you were 76-1/2 years old. That's a really big smile Grandma!

When I can talk about you again without crying so hard, then I will tell my children all about their Meme. After I'm done telling them, then I'll plug my i-Pod into the computer and find a certain Village People number and then we'll all do the YMCA in your honor. Okay?

Grands bisous a toi! Comme je t'aime.

Ta grandfille,

Kelly

PS - I always loved your Christmas cookies.

Here you are with Grandpa Wendell and my 3-little guys, we were at Grandpa's office in the Federal Building. It was Mothers' Day 2006.

Do you remember when you first met Annike (05/2005), your great-granddaughter?

THANATOPSIS
by: William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

O him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;--
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,--the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, pour'd round all,
Old Ocean's grey and melancholy waste,--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
Save his own dashings--yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest: and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged by his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.